risk averse

silver soul

I don’t have an excuse to grieve anymore. There is no reason to cry, longing for the past, when I have backslid back into it. There is no use in listening to old songs that would unstring nostalgia from within me. I have given in to the impulse. The past knocked and I opened the door.

It felt like everything confusing. I felt my feet were awash with muddy water. It felt like when you’re in a math class and don’t know anything; like circling random answers on a multiple-choice test. All impulse, no strategy.

But now, I see the soft horizon, glowing bright and blue, and not in a sad kind of way. The fog has not yet lifted, but the light spills through. Not everything has to remind me of dust. Not everything has to feel like bite marks.

I think back to all the journal entries I’ve written. Maybe, they’ve all secretly been excuses. I have none anymore. I made that decision this week. If I return to the past, either in confident strides or slanted steps, I must carry on regardless. I’ve already pressed the big red button. What else can I do?

Except, maybe, I can exercise more caution this time. Make it less about giving in, and more about being smart.

I kept asking myself what I was waiting for. The silver-lining? My diamonds coming in bulk? Heavy and massive? The love of my life — who so conveniently is waiting by the door? Why had I, for so long, refused to move? I am not so smart all the time. I’ll admit I know less now than back then. But I have no excuses left. What will I do now?

What kind of sign am I waiting for? The moment where it all crumbles? The ending? The last final blow? Is that really all it takes? I wish I didn’t have to learn so much after the fact. Maybe then I’d look back less.

Am I going to apologize this time? Make myself less fraudulent and digestible? I played pretend for so long I don’t remember how to be anything but. What’s my excuse now? I have none. None at all.

I pressed into the wound so many times. I played with it until it grew so wide I could no longer hide it. I made memorials on my body out of bruises and tender sores. I nailed it down. Aha! I know the reason behind my suffering! I know why I hurt so easily!

Look at me now. I don’t know anything at all.

I am half-contradiction and half-a-person, if even that. I am not a mirage anymore. I have taken shape. Why am I withdrawing, suddenly? Thinking about making myself another pity project and mere projection? Why am I so passive about all the things that matter all the time?

I have no excuse.

What will I do now? Cower? Lay in languid blue? Submit to the melancholy? When do people start to act on their life instead of watching it from afar?

I am, suddenly, in range of incredible harm and self-inflicted disaster. I am at the crosshairs of a highway exit, not knowing whether I should turn or not. I am in the space between clarity and fog, where I am open and sparkling and prone to wither if I do not land this shot. How brutal to think of my feelings this way.

I cannot lose my guilt in exchange for an infantile innocence. I can no longer play it coy. I can no longer laugh about all the things that make me sad. I have realized they actually do. I am altering my life. Watching it take shape. I am afraid. There I’ve said it. I am worried I made the wrong choice.

And what of the love I said I supposedly had? That can no longer be tarnished by nostalgia and melancholy? That I can no longer keep beating with a hammer? Do I remember his hands? Am I still swooning over getting to speak to him at all? Do I just want a witness to lay claim to my growth?

I imagine myself, instead: crying into his arms and saying, “It didn’t go how I thought it would. Not at all,” then retreating into infancy. How childish of me. I imagine him seeing me and being unable to recognize me.

I open up, like a melon ripe for it’s season, and I say, “Look. I did everything you told me not to do.” Is it because I want him to bear witness? Did I reopen a door or have I stumbled upon a new one?

What do I do when I have no excuse left? When I have no choice but to face the morning of my life? When I can no longer hide from what I’ve leaned into? I am not the saddest girl in the block anymore. Just the most afraid.

I imagine being a passenger in his car again, feeling the wind in my hair, sparing myself the punishment, and buying a coffee. And what would I say? I made all the wrong turns. Or they were the right ones poorly disguised. I am trying to make a name for myself. It hasn’t worked yet. I see myself making better jokes. Laughing more sincerely. I think he’d love me if I gave him the chance.

Now I’ve given in to him.

What now? He loved me before. That pale, sickly, frail girl. At least, I think.

Now that I am not her, I am afraid again. All this time I thought, he’d love the more confident version. Why do I feel the need to retreat into the very girl I felt so ashamed of being? When will I learn to acknowledge the present for what it is? I have no excuse anymore. I am afraid he won’t care for me. I am afraid I will surrender myself to an open grave. I am afraid that it will work out and I will get to make bad jokes in his car again.

I am not making and re-making my bed. I have moved apartments. I have cut my hair. I am not suspended in a dream. Why have I failed to realize that, all this time?

I am not the same girl who cries in the laundromat anymore. And what will I say now? He has looked, but can I hold his gaze?

There is nothing to be sad about anymore. I opened the door. I’m supposed to make better choices now.

I still believe he might be the realest thing in this city.